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Tag: czars

Raging against “czars” seems all but obligatory these days for movement conservatives. The proliferation of Obama administration czars means “a giant expansion of presidential power,” warns Karl Rove, former domestic policy czar for the Bush administration–which I suppose proves once again that the capacity for embarassment is a career liability in this town.

Conservatives ought to be concerned about the growth of executive power. But as I argue in my Washington Examiner column this week, “czars” are pretty far down any serious list of executive-power concerns:

conservatives’ current bout of czar mania elevates symbolism over substance. All the focus on a scary moniker for certain executive officials misses the real problem: Unconstitutional delegation of power to the executive branch. Whether those illegitimate powers are exercised by unconfirmed presidential advisers or the president himself is quite beside the point….

Often, czars are mere figureheads, appointed to signal concern over the latest hot-button issue. As one presidential scholar puts it, “when in doubt, create a czar.”

True, it’s problematic that some of these appointees aren’t vetted by the Senate, and that presidents claim czars don’t have to answer to Congress – as when the Bush administration asserted in 2002 that executive privilege shielded then-homeland security czar Tom Ridge from testifying on the Hill.

But as the Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel has pointed out, many of the “czars” who appear on the conservative target list already have to be confirmed by the Senate. Others don’t, but when Obama is hell-bent on taking over the health care sector – one-sixth of the U.S. economy – it’s bizarre to agonize over the allegedly unchecked power exercised by the likes of the AIDS and urban affairs czars.

Similarly, while it’s great to see a nutter like Van Jones denied a federal salary, few of those cheering Jones’ defenestration can coherently explain what the green jobs czar actually does, or the threat he was supposed to represent.

What, was Jones going to give 9/11 “Truthers” and black nationalists jobs weatherizing homes? Will we stop wasting money on such projects now that he’s gone?

On paper, they are special advisers, chairmen of White House boards, special envoys and Cabinet agency deputies, asked by the president to guide high-priority initiatives. But critics call them “czars” whose powers are not subject to congressional oversight, and their increasing numbers have become a flash point for conservative anger at President Obama.

Critics of the proliferation of czars say the White House uses the appointments to circumvent the normal vetting process required for Senate confirmation and to avoid congressional oversight.

I have tended not to take concern over “czars” very seriously. After all, advisers to the president can’t exercise any power that the president doesn’t have (or assume without response from Congress or the courts). And I figured the White House doesn’t call people “czars,” that’s just a media term, so it’s not really fair to blame the White House for what reporters say.

But then, thanks to crack Cato intern Miles Pope, I discovered that the White House does call its czars czars, at least informally. A few examples:

In an interview on April 15, 2009 Obama said, “The goal of the border czar is to help coordinate all the various agencies that fall under the Department of Homeland Security…”

In a March 11, 2009, briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs turned to “address the czar question for a minute, because I think I’ve been asked in this room any number of times if the czars in our White House to deal with energy and health care had too much power.”

On March 11, 2009 Vice President Biden said, “Today I’m pleased to announce that President Obama has nominated as Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy – our nation’s drug czar – Gil Kerlikowske…”

And while I said that the advisers have no real power, there’s at least one who does – a real czar – the “pay czar,” Kenneth Feinberg. He “has sole discretion to set compensation for the top 25 employees” of large companies receiving bailouts, and his “decisions won’t be subject to appeal.” Now that’s a czar.

My former colleague Dave Weigel makes the excellent point that the supposed explosion of “Czars” under this administration is, in significant part, a function of journalists trying to make the same old “deputy undersecretary” sound sexier. Which is a shame, since it means that the pernicious and the benign get lumped together under the same sensationalist label – one whose public effect is to normalize the idea of unaccountable individuals within the executive branch given sweeping powers to solve specific problems, whether or not that picture is accurate.

I don’t know how much it can be attributed to the Czarmania, but I’m especially puzzled by the apparent emergence of legal scholar and prospective OIRA Adminstrator Cass Sunstein as the new hot bogeyman for conservatives. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which Sunstein’s been tapped to head, was created in 1980 and is precisely the sort of agency conservatives should love – tasked with catching inefficient and excessively burdensome regulations before they go into effect. It has, unsurprisingly, been most active under conservative presidents, and is one of the few offices where fans of limited government should want a vigorous, influential, and intellectually formidable director at the helm.

Now, Cass Sunstein is not somebody I agree with on a great number of things. On the day he’s tapped for a seat on the Supreme Court bench, I’ll break out in hives. But it’s awfully hard to imagine any realistic alternative – anyone Obama might actually have appointed – who would be better in the OIRA post from a limited government perspective. (I considered some of the specific concerns being raised about Sunstein back in the spring and found that they ranged from exaggerated to simply mendacious.) That’s one reason hardcore progressives have, in fact, been freaking out over his nomination. They must be pinching themselves now that it seems Glenn Beck is out to do their work for them. Say what you will about the tenets of “libertarian paternalism,” but at least it’s an ethos that would demand a far lighter touch on markets than the unreconstructed technocracy of your average regulator.

You’ve named 18 so far, according to something I read in Foreign Policy. That includes a border czar, a climate czar, an information technology czar and – I don’t think Thomas Jefferson grew enough hemp in his lifetime to dream up this one – the “faith-based czar.” Your car czar, Steve Rattner, was in the news last week, trying to keep Chrysler out of bankruptcy.

It took Russia 281 years to accumulate that many czars. Even with hemophilia, repeated assassinations and a level of inbreeding that would gag a Dalmatian breeder. You did it in less than 100 days.

And every one of them hurts. I think I speak for all passed-over Victorian despots when I say that.

[…]

…maybe it’s time for a new autocrat to get some air time. Time for something that will stand out even in a White House with a czar in every cubicle.

President Obama’s archduke of information technology announced today … Pricks up the ears, doesn’t it?

In Detroit, the president’s car sultan … Instant respect. Mainly because those who defy the car sultan might be killed by eunuch assassins.

Or might I humbly suggest the title of an enlightened ruler who – unlike the czars – actually worked well with parliament and the nobility (in your terms, that would be “Congress” and “Oprah”). Somebody whose record is nearly unblemished, except for one invasion of Belgium that everybody’s totally over now.